April Fool’s Chairman Message

Welcome to the final count down – two more weeks of rehearsal and then it is SHOWTIME!!!

We have sold out all Sunday matinees (April 15th and 22nd). Umm, April Fools. So, please encourage your friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, and anyone you meet on the street to buy tickets for the other shows… to sell out we really do have a target of selling 20 tickets each. Congrats to Julie Lanesey for getting 27 of her friends to pony up for balcony seats. Congrats to Bob Gutgsell for getting 20 of his Rotary fiends to come to the show! Congrats to Leonor Urbain for getting 10 of her sister-city friends to come see the show! You guys ROCK!

Rehearsal Calendar this week & Looking ahead:

Week of April 2nd – We have a week of rehearsals with the same schedule as last week and then next week is 1st Half, 2nd Half run throughs and pictures. See the cast & crew tab on our web site for the latest & greatest schedule. Also, copies of the calendar will be available at Central.

Shady Dames – show up at 6:45 pm on Tuesday please.

April 7th – next Saturday starting at 9 am, we will be taking committee photos. Look for a message later in the week on specific times.

Week of April 9th – and then next week is 1st Half, 2nd Half run throughs and pictures. See the cast & crew tab on our web site for the latest & greatest schedule. Also, copies will be available at Central.

April 14th dress rehearsal – call time 9 am; announcements & dedication 10 am; dress rehearsal run through starts at 10:30 am and we should finish at about 1 pm. Please plan accordingly. We will have a special appearance by New Ground, a new dance troop in the area, courtesy of Sandy Rodriguez.

April 21st BBQ – we will be having a BBQ in between the two Saturday shows. We will send out a link to our pre-order form. Dinner (including water or sod) will be around $10 a person plus $5 a drink ticket for wine or beer. Look for a separate message to pre-order your food. This BBQ will be held at the Epiphany Church at the corner of Cedar and Arroyo – close to Central)

PROGRAM

There is a draft of our program floating around at Central (thank you Tim King!). PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE make sure you sign off on it at rehearsal this week; each participant, each skit director, each choreographer… you get the picture. Please take a look and make sure we aren’t missing your name, or anyone else’s and that they are spelled properly!

CURTAIN

The Curtain is being completely redone – a thousand thanks to the amazing artistic team of Robin Weber, Margaret Ana, Ricki Smith & Lyndsey Smith; and Dan “auto-cad is your friend” Williamson.

SKITS

Thank you for a good tech meeting Saturday. Hopefully everyone got the info they needed to the right groups!

Now that all of the skit flats are at Central, don’t forget to clean out your paint areas at “Belles Place.”

Also – if you want rehearsal time at Central the week of April 16th or April 23rd, please let me know and I will reserve the time for you.

Please forward this message to your skit cast – they are not on this mailing list!

CHICKENS’ BALL SURVIVAL KIT

How to have a successful Chickens’ Ball – what is needed to survive your performances? Well, there are a few things that are very helpful to have back stage: mirror, lighted mirror, clothing rack, changing area (tri-fold screen); full length mirror; a well-stocked SHOW make-up bag – extra bright blush, false eyelashes (and glue), base make-up, etc. (see the make-up requirements on the cast & crew tab of chickensball.org), straight pins (not straight jackets, although talk to me after the show is over and I’ll tell you if that was really needed). safety pins (large & small), bobby pins, hair pins, wig stand (if you use a wig), mustache or beard glue, garment bags (especially good to have if it is raining)…, gum, mints, snacks, extra nude/skin tone hose, extra fishnet stockings, other extras (undergarments, etc. as needed), and probably a few more items, I am forgetting. Most of all, the ultimate survival tool is a willingness to have fun and a sense of humor! Definitely don’t forget to bring those!

WANTED:

1) People – We are looking for stage crew, who move the skit flats into place when the entre acts are happening, hall boys, who provide security, and call boys, who make sure the right people are getting to the stage at the right time. While I say boys, it is really for boys and girls! We are also looking for 2 more make-up people. If you know of anyone interested, please contact Sonya Sigler at 650-281-8325 or sonya@chickensball.org.

2) Things – we are looking for a couple of things that would be useful in our show: a tri-fold screen to use on stage and the street lamps from prior shows. We heard a rumor that there are street lamps in someones basement…

VIDEO

We will be filming on Saturday April 21st at 2 pm and if needed, also April 21st at 8 pm. John Stevens will be filming our show. We will be recording both the ambient sound and the output from the sound system. The video will be $20 and our show photo montage will also be $20 and if you buy them together, it will be $30. You will be able to pre-order this as well, so look for a separate email on this topic.

AFTER THE BALL PARTY

We will be having a Cinco de Mayo party as our after the Ball party on, funny enough, May 5th. Location and timing will be finalized and details sent out in a separate message. Again, you will be able to pre-order your dinner and we will send the details about that in a separate message.

Misc.

This week at rehearsal we had a guest visit from Dorothy Baker, a long time Chickens’ Baller from the 1960’s.

Connie Barba was last seen fighting with white satin fabric and losing the battle into making white tails…

Overheard from Nick Weber (who was honored this week as a firefighter), turn that damn iron off, we don’t want to start a fire if it gets knocked over!

Sonya was last seen picking up her sewing machine from the street and the miscellaneous parts that were strewn about the intersection in front of the school as the sewing machine fell out of the back of her station wagon pulling out of the school parking lot…

APRIL FOOLS – we really haven’t sold out any shows and are really trying to sell tickets! Please send out the flyers emailed to you Friday, March 30th and encourage your contacts to buy tickets NOW! Don’t forget to share our flyers – ticket flyer, show flyer and neighbor flyer! See last week’s message and the cast & crew tab of our website for more info.